Joseph Bellamy was born in 1719. He was admitted to Yale College at an early age and graduated in 1735. From there he came under the tutelage of Jonathan Edwards, minister of the Northampton Church. Bellamy began to supply the pulpit of a new church in Bethlehem, Connecticut and was later called by the church as its pastor and ordained and installed on April 2, 1740. He became one of the leading figures in The Great Awakening and during the two years beginning in March of 1741 preached 458 times in 213 places outside his own parish. Great crowds came to hear him preach and many were savingly converted through his ministry. Sin, the Law, and the Glory of the Gospel contains three works by Joseph Bellamy: The Great Evil of Sin as Committed Against God, The Law Our School Master, and The Nature and the Glory of the Gospel. This book puts the law and the gospel and their relationship to one another in clear perspective, a perspective that is rarely understood today. The following quotes are from each of these works:
But the sinner comes in, and dissents from his whole constitution, and that both in heart and life. "As for his law," says he, "I do not like it, and will not obey it. As for his authority, I do not own it, and will not regard it. As for his universal government and glorious kingdom, it is not to my mind;--I revolt;--I will not have him to reign over me. I can prescribe better rules to live by. I will not be dependent on him, nor in subjection to him." Thus the sinner revolts from his govemment, casts off his authority, breaks his law, and in the language of Scripture, "rebels against the Lord." For, in Scripture, this is always considered as God's world; he is our rightful Lord and King; and all our duty is enjoined, and all sin is forbidden, by his authority; and therefore every act of sin is forbidden, by his authority; and therefore every act of sin is considered as an act of rebellion against the Lord, and sinners have the character of rebels."
However sincere a man may be, in what he calls religion; yet he cannot possibly be sincere in the service of God, properly speaking, until after he has been brought to this right understanding of the law, and to this hearty approbation of it...He to whom the law, although a ministration of death, does not appear glorious, in all its rigour; to him, God himself does not appear glorious. For the law is but a transcript of the divine nature. It is the very image of God's heart. Or, if any such imagine they love God, it is but a false image of God they have framed in their own fancy. For no man loves God, who does not love the law. He that is an enemy to ONE, is to the OTHER (Romans 8:7). And there is nothing in the religion of such men that pleases God (Romans 8:8).
It is true, many a carnal man is ravished to think that God loves him, and will save him; but in this case, it is not the true character of God which charms the heart; it is mt God that is loved. Strictly speaking. he only loves himself; and self-love is the source of all his affections. Or, if we call it love to God, it is of no other kind than sinners feel to one another; "for sinners love those that love them."...The rapturous joys of sinners, who are blind to the beauty of the divine character as exhibited in his law, arising merely from a belief that God loves them and will save them, have nothing of the nature of holiness or love to God in them; nor will this kind of religion, although raised to the highest perfection, in the least qualify a man to live in heaven